Onto the Pony Planet--Chapter 11 Notes · 12:59am Mar 17th, 2014
A huge thanks to my pre-readers: Humanist, AnormalUnicornPony, metallusionsismagic, Woonsocket Wrench, and my parents.
In English questions are usually signaled by raising the pitch of the voice on the last word in the sentence. I don't know if that's true in other languages, but I suspect it probably is.
The Red Cross is an instantly-recognizable symbol, ratified by a treaty in Switzerland in 1864. There are other symbols, too—the Red Crescent and Red Diamond. If you want to know more about them, here’s an interesting Wikipedia article. I hadn’t realized (until I read the article) that the symbol on American ambulances was changed during my lifetime, from an orange cross to the blue asterix.
The grace Dale says before the meal is, as best as I was able to determine, a variation on an Anglican prayer. I particularly liked the “hands” bit (since it’s totally inappropriate).
The first draft of the chapter had a different prayer, one my grandfather occasionally used: “Dear Lord, bless this food to our use and ourselves to thy service.” I think that one stuck in my head because there were very few occasions where my grandfather prayed before meals: my father was a pastor, you see, so it made the most sense that he’d be the one to say grace. Thus, I only heard my grandfather say grace when my brother and I were dropped off at his house.
Nowadays, before family meals, we often read a Bible verse, or else go with the beginning of “This is the day that the Lord has made” (usually singing). For a long time, we used a Norwegian prayer—long enough that I can still remember the words. “O, du som metter liten fugl velsign vår mat, O Gud” (Yes, I needed help with the spelling, and I have no idea what it means.) Would you like to know more?
Interestingly, and now completely off-topic, since I’ve always had a pretty good memory for songs, I can also sing “Kami the camel” in French: my mom got me a cassette of children’s French songs in Sarnia, Ontario back in the eighties (if you don’t know what a cassette is, look it up). Perhaps if I’d learned more foreign languages in the context of song, it would have stuck. There may be a method to Zecora’s madness, after all. Hmmm....
Kami le chameau a deux bois, kami le chameau a deux bois...
As of the writing of this blog post, I’ve been unable to prepare the foods that Dale has for lunch. My cooking skills won’t pay the bills—I started a kitchen fire trying to boil water once. Seriously. Sweetie and I have that in common (she’s a lot cuter, and a better singer, though). However, I have eaten a dandelion salad before, and if there were dandelions in my yard, I’d make another. Y’all don’t want to wait a month until the ground thaws for another chapter, so I’ll just press ahead.
Salad
Dandelions grow early, and kale’s a good cold-weather crop. I had some in my garden one year, and it was happy and leafy above the snow cover. Carrots can also survive in the ground through the winter—as long as you keep the ground from freezing. I did research for that in another story that you haven’t seen yet. This salad recipe isn’t quite the same as what I envisioned—and naturally, Apple Cobbler left out the bacon—but it’s close enough.
Bell peppers take around 90 days to mature, according to my research. Given that it’s early spring in Equestria, that’s really pushing it. I’ll assume that the peppers are hothouse grown, and harvested early (that’s why they’re smaller)--that would cost more, but I think that Apple Cobbler wants to show off her cooking, and is willing to put her money where her mouth is, so to speak. Peppers can be dehydrated and rehydrated, but I doubt they’d look good in a stuffed pepper dish. Diced, you probably wouldn’t know the difference.
A nagging thought was going through his mind that there was no reason to assume that their crops were identical to Earth’s, but he pushed it aside.
There’s a chart proving the height of the ponies based on the size of an apple. I’m sure most of my readers have seen it. You can probably guess my complaint with that chart. Before you make an angry comment, I have, in fact, assumed that ponies are about that size. I do, however, caution my readers from making careless assumptions.
Fruit Salad
Apples keep for a long time in a properly cooled environment. They’re not the only food that does; our ancestors had all sorts of tricks for preserving food to be used at a later date. One trick is dehydrating the food and rehydrating it later. Raisins, for example, are dried grapes. Since I assume the ponies don’t have commercial-grade refrigerators, they probably dry their food to preserve it. Thus, the fruit salad only contains fruit which can be kept for a long time, or which can be re-hydrated.
Apple pie and cheese is a regional thing. I first came across it in a Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker. Apparently, it’s common around Boston, some of New England, and a few places in the Midwest. I’ve never seen it in Michigan. Perhaps my readers can can weigh in? I thought it would be interesting to include something that not even ponies agree on—in this case, Twilight has already expressed her anti-cheese opinion several chapters ago, while Lyra has been exposed to more international and regional culture than Twilight. I actually tried it for myself, and I just want to let you know that I personally dislike apple pie in general, and cheese doesn't make it better. The cucumber and chrysanthemum sandwich I ate for research purposes was much tastier.
Is Twilight a leftie or a rightie? Well, a brief examination of various screencaps shows that she often uses her right hoof for touching things (books, her face), but her left for pointing, so that’s not certain. I don't have the time to watch every single episode and note which hoof she uses for what, and then count out which she prefers. Nobody's got time for that. Speculation on an EqG wiki implies that Pinkie, AJ, and RD are lefties, while the other three are righties (not what I would have guessed, and it certainly is unlikely with human distribution of handedness, but I’m not sure about equines). Still, I think that Twilight is right-hooved, so that’s the hoof she instinctively puts on the table.
As for the whole ‘hooves’ thing. Most people don’t make any particular effort to hide their feet, but most of us probably wouldn’t be comfortable taking off shoe and sock an putting our foot on a table for a stranger to inspect, without even taking the opportunity to wash it first.
Nursery Rhyme is a nurses’ foal. She obviously lives at the hospital—why else would she have been one of the ponies chasing RD in the middle of the night? Personally, I think that it makes the most sense that she’s the offspring of Redheart and the doctor, but to cut down on the hate from everyone who thinks Redheart is his or her waifu, I decided not to specifically say it. In fact, I’ll go one step further and tell you here that Redheart, Snowheart, and Sweetheart (and maybe Tenderheart) all live at the hospital with Dr. Stable in a nice herd. What? Doesn’t that seem obvious? Hey, put down that pitchfork!
Here were going to be two drawings, prepared by myself, showing an example of Twilight and Dale's art skills. You will note that they are not here. I had to work some extra shifts, and then had to go to Wixom yesterday after work for a tool show, and then today work a 15 hour shift, tomorrow I've got class in Ann Arbor after work, and Tuesday I'm up in Lansing playing Pathfinder . . . so, it was either delay this chapter for a couple of days, or give it to you without art. You're getting the art-less version. Maybe Wednesday you'll be seeing a new chapter of Side Stories with a 0 word count (or maybe I won't wind up drawing anything at all).
UNRELATED!
This happens to be my hundredth blog post. How appropriate that it’s for a chapter of Onto the Pony Planet.
My first blog post, in its entirety:
Well, it's on the cusp of a new year, and I suppose one of my resolutions should be to write more, and to write a blog post, occasionally, if anyone wants to know what's going through my head.
But that's all for next year. Keep safe this new years, everyone.
However, my second blog post announced Celestia Sleeps In. I had probably imagined that hundreds of people would read it and flock to my story, but that didn’t exactly happen. A grand total of 31 people read it, and nobody commented.
Honestly, I don't think ponies would really even consider themselves righties or lefties. Sure they might favor one over the other for certain things, but they write with their mouths, so 90% of the relevence is lost.
Fun fact, we've seen Spike write with both hands.
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IRL horses do have a dominant leg. I came across instructions on how to tell somewhere. I think it has to do with which leg they lead with when they're approaching something strange. I'm not on my usual computer, so it would take me a while to find the instructions.
To my mind, the greatest bit of evidence is Twilight in EqG, since it's the same Twilight in a 'human' form. I don't know if it's safe to draw conclusions from her friends, though; the pony version of them stayed in Equestria. One wonders if there's another Twilight Sparkle in Equestria Girls World, or if there are two Sunset Shimmers. And, does Principal Celestia raise the sun, or just ring the school bell? (wow, off topic!)
Dragons are ambidextrous.
Who would ruin a perfectly good pie by putting cheese on it?
Manitoban, if you want regional information on pie-eating habits.
1932308
I take it you don't put cheese on your pie, then?
Aw... I was really hoping to be able to use this thing one day... *puts down pitchfork*
Wha... how... is that even... never mind, I don't want to know.
HOORAY!
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Mile_Marker_100.svg
True for Russian.
LINK! Now!
Really? Right now it has a lot of faves, comments and likes. Some things just take some time.
1932381
i.stack.imgur.com/EuepU.png
As you wish!
Personally, I like the hoof scale, because it doesn't assume anything outside of actual show canon:
harogenki.com/forumjunk/pony/size_reference1.png
And there's also one for the height of monsters, based in Twilight Sparkle units
fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/236/c/6/mlp__fim_size_comparison_chart_by_joetheimpaler-d6jidrc.png
1932381 now that I think about it, true for French as well. My French is super rusty though.
1932289 Well, fine and well, but still. Mouthwriting.
Twilight could be ambidextrous as well. And that is the sweetest most daw-worthy picture of Celestia I can remember. Someone in a skype I am in asked if her mane flowed while laying like that.
There's a size reference that I haven't seen used much in discussions of pony dimensions, perhaps because it's newer or perhaps because of its source. In Equestria Girls right after Twilight arrives through the mirror portal, she sticks her hand back into the statue pedestal that forms the human side of the portal and her hand turns into a hoof faintly visible through the surface of the stone. This may be a bit difficult to translate into an accurate scale since the angle the hoof was viewed from wasn't ideal, but it should at least rule out some extremes.
Later on in the movie Twilight looks into a mirror and imagines her original face looking back at her, which could give a relative scale between pony heads and human heads, but since that was clearly imaginary it may not mean anything that they're roughly the same size.
Perhaps we'll get some better opportunities to see the transition from pony to human and back again in Equestria Girls 2 and 3.
Living in different areas of northern and southern new England for more than 30 years of my life I can tell you that though I have heard of people putting cheese on apple pie, I've never actually witnessed it.
Further, I've never seen it as an option on a restaurant menu that I can recall. Nor by a server in a diner. Now whipped cream or ice cream? Hell yeah.
If it is a New England thing, it must be fairly isolated because I have lived in or have family in every New England state except Maine and Rhode Island.
Now I could imagine perhaps upstate NY having such a custom, if only due to the fact they do produce a fair amount of Cheddar and apples if I remember correctly.
1932398
Thanks. So that makes ponies around 1.01m or 1.20m height. Big Mac would probably be ~1.50m.
Just a note. Some humans are as tall as one meter.
Different countries have different average height. You could use that later in the story.
Also I want a horn microwave. I'm a bit jealous of that.
When I was in Sydney they had a historical marker talking about a commercial freezing plant dating from the 19th century. If memory serves it got started in the 1840's, and was one of the first such factories in the world, though the earliest date mentioned in this website is 1866.
It is now the site of one of the pretties gardens I have ever seen.
wanderingearl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Chinese-Garden-Sydney-3.jpg
blog.posse.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/garden1.jpg
buderimgardenclub.com/photos/Chinese-Gardens/chinese%20garden%20two.jpg
1932398
There was an old thread on Humans aren't Bastards where someone derived the heights of the ponies based on this picture.
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121104210816/mlp/images/b/b5/Rainbow_Dash_in_front_of_the_flyers_S2E07.png
There are many different varieties of apples, but only one variety of eagles with that distinctive plumage, making them a potentially more reliable judge of relative height than the apple measure.
1932419
Yes, she certainly could be. This is one of those things where the evidence suggests that she might be a righty, but the evidence in the show is far too inconsistent to make any conclusions, if the animators even bothered to put that much thought into it (which I doubt).
I considered using it as coverart for Celestia Sleeps In, but didn't.
Yes, but it's slower when she sleeps.
1932423
I have seen EqG height charts; as with any other chart, we don't know the height of the girls. We can presume that they're human-height, but nowhere in the show does it say that (and they certainly aren't human, not with those skin-tones).
Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against those charts. I think the animators are working with the theory that the ponies are somewhere around four feet tall at the tips of their ears. I just feel that until there is an unmistakably human character in the show (Megan, maybe), there's no requirement to stick to any of the size charts, since apples, cows, giant candy canes, or whatever else is used as a reference could be different in Equestria than it is on earth.
1932426
It may be something where you have to ask the server specifically, I dunno.
I didn't find much on the practice, just that it is a thing in certain parts of the country.
I'd much rather have ice cream or whipped cream than cheese, but I kind of can see the appeal. If I actually liked apple pie, I'd consider putting more research into the subject.
I know, right?
I wonder which leg Applejack uses to buck apples with.
1932547
Didn't whoever it was explicitly say it was an eight-foot candy cane? That seems pretty unambiguous to me.
1932429
The same may hold true in Equestria: the Saddle Arabians and Fleur are taller than the average pony.
1932561
The length of one 'foot' is just as arbitrary as any other measurement. One foot could easily have only been 11 inches long, or twenty, or not existed at all. When two completely different worlds try to compare figures such as standard lengths or vegetation, no matter how similar they may seem, there will always be variances.
(Also, she uses both legs. It's even shown in the intro.)
1932466
Were they making frozen food, or ice for ice boxes and commercial freezers? I'll have to do some research on that. The ponies seem to have iceboxes, so the idea of frozen or chilled food isn't beyond them, but they may do like we northerners did, and harvest lake ice during the winter, then keep it in icehouses all summer long.
True, but that eagle can use its feathers like hands and stand on clouds. Real eagles don't do either of those things; they just stand on the ice on Lake Macatawa and wait for the seagulls to get something. Then they take it from the seagulls, because eagles are jerks.
1932561
That's a good question. I think she uses both. Could also check when she names her hind legs, which one does she raise and name first?
Yes, and I believe it was Pinkie (not always a reliable source for information). It can be debated what a 'foot' is to a pony. It does put the ponies at about the assumed fanon height, though.
1932591
*Looks up Lake Macatawa*
Oh hey, a lake right next to the ocean, that's pretty cool!
*Zooms out*
...oh. I should've known.
1932590
I mean, technically that's possible, yeah. But, you're arguing that when the scriptwriters said 'eight feet', they were referring to some kind of foot other than the standard familiar one, without making any indication that that's what they were doing. You need a stronger argument for that than just 'well, maybe it could happen'.
1932597
Well, if it was Pinkie, then that actually increases the chance that she was using the human definition of 'foot' instead of some hypothetical pony definition, doesn't it?
Michael click move link there. Michael link move here. Michael make words.
1932614
The scriptwriters? Perhaps not, but at this point Friendship is Magic has grown beyond a simple television show. We--that is, the bronies (and other fans of FiM, but not as much)--have been building the world on our own outside the episodes for quite a long time. We've even influenced the official writers to include parts of our world (like the term 'alicorn' or Derpy Hooves) into the canon of the story, but that's a bit off-topic.
It could also be argued that, like in OPP and CSI, the ponies aren't speaking in English and we are simply hearing an 'approximate translation' of what they are actually saying.
I'll admit that I've never had cheese on my pie, but it doesn't sound like a particularly good combination to me.
That Norwegian prayer is rather pretty sounding, even not knowing Norwegian.
Production wise, Flash models only have one side so any hand's show of dominance only lasts as long as the character is facing in that direction. (They get flipped.)
1932573
While this does give insight in what you're thinking about your story, I meant that when ponies meet humans.
Some humans might be on even eye level with ponies.
1932519
Actually when you have someone who uses both hands for different tasks that would normally be considered primary, they were ambi or close to it, just not necessarily overly dextrous. My father is lefty(and not horribly far from ambi but not massively close -- he is say 60/40) but uses his right for some things. I am the other way. I am quite close to ambi(say 47/53) but use my right hand for writing just because it is easier to do so since most things are not made for lefties and thereby I have practiced said more, but when I eat I use both hands and I carry close to the same weight with both, and I kick with my right foot. Thing is though -- I am certainly NOT of above average dexterity. (I don't care on the computer if it requires me to use the right or left hand for computer games)
My guess is that since Twilight is not an athlete and never bothered to really care much and since her hoofedness was very close ended up doing some tasks with either as opposed to significantly preferring one over the other. If anything it leads to more confusion/less overall skill than anything else when growing up and the most important good thing about it is that if one hand/hoof is damaged, you can step up and use the other without it being a horrible imposition.
1932637
Well, if it's a translation, then surely it's been translated from however many of whatever pony unit to eight human feet, right?
It's true in a lot of languages, if not most. Certainly all the ones anybody in my family has studied (last count, 9+ between the four of us), though since we're mainly learning them in a chiefly-English-speaking environment, you may wish to take that with the proverbial NaCl granule. If you want more detail you can look it up fairly easily; a quick skim of the Wikipedia pages on questions and interrogatives shows they discuss intonation, among other methods:
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1932718
Otherwise known as the Translation Convention (WARNING: TV Tropes). It can also cover things like translations of units, even within a language - eg, a work might be localized to the U.S. by swapping out foreign slang (reasonable) and converting everything to U.S. Customary Units (*shudder*). (While I feel the common U.S. units tend to be a bit more conveniently sized for most general uses, that's pretty much the only thing the system has going for it, and I'd gladly accept the slight extra effort in exchange for swapping to S.I. once-and-for-all).
1932704
That's known as mixed-handedness. Whether or not it's better or worse than any other type is (as usual) almost entirely dependent on the environment, and what the person in question is doing at the time (though in my experience, which type you tend to rarely makes a significant difference in most situations the average person is likely to encounter).
A restaurant out here in California has this little poem on the menu (or placemats, I can't remember).
Apple pie
without some cheese
Is like a kiss
without a squeeze.
As for prayers, I will offer you these two from summer camp.
Good bread
Good meat
Good God
Let's eat.
or
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Eat the fastest, get the most.
1932718
Not necessarily. There are many words even here on our planet that have no equivalent in other languages. Sure, words like 'chair' or 'water' are universal, but think of other words such as 'taco' or 'touche'. A taco is a uniquely Mexican dish that uses combinations of ingredients found only in that part of the world, mainly rice, beans, corn, beef/chicken/fish, salsa, avocado and/or a few others. 'Touche' is of French origin, and roughly translates to 'I see what you did there', or sometimes 'alright, I admit I was wrong'. The literal translation would be 'touched', and is used mostly in fencing competitions to acknowledge when an opponent has scored a hit on them, or 'touched' them. Neither word had translations, so people simply copied them outright.
And then there's semi-translations. There's a book called The Joy-Luck Club that actually centers around the issue heavily. I'm not telling you to read it--I couldn't myself; I found it boring and difficult to follow. However, take a look at the spark notes page of its themes. You'll find something familiar right off the bat.
1932801
Though words that are hard to translate concisely do exist, it's hard to make a case for lengths (and other objective things) being among them. For example, S.I. and U.S. units don't actually have exact conversions between each other, but that doesn't mean users of the different systems can't communicate effectively; both parties can just measure the same thing, and with enough effort they can get as close as they want to an exact conversion.
1932839
But the ponies of the show have never had a chance to compare their measurements to ours. It's an example of that translation trope; what we hear is as close as can be found in English and still make sense to us.
1932844
That was my intended point, yes. The translation convention would turn whatever their measurements are into whatever we'd call the same value; whether or not the societies in question ever come up with the conversions themselves is pretty much immaterial.
You know, I put cheese on a lot of things, but it never occurred to us to add it to pie! Now I gotta try it!
1932872
Do so with the utmost caution, young grasshopper. Cheese may be a powerful force for good, but if misused it can turn on you in an instant. Heed this experiment-scarred veteran carefully: if you charge forth into this territory without a proper guide, you will almost certainly not escape unscathed, and your taste buds may never be the same.
I've been having trouble tracking down my sources (oh, how I loathe having my saved data split up...), but from what I recall the various charts in question do tend to give reasonably consistent results. (If anyone could let me know how to jump right to the target post, I'd appreciate it. For now, you'll have to make do with the find feature.)
Of course, this is all assuming that we can actually interpret things literally, which need not be the case. Considering how much they're stylized in comparison to the rather-less-cartoony just-about-everything-else, I generally tend to assume the rest of the world is more likely to be "accurate" from an Earth perspective and mentally try to fit the ponies to it first, rather than using them as the prime basis for interpreting things.
twilight could be ambidextrous
1932591
I think they were freezing meat for export, though I did see this a long time ago so I could be wrong.
Well I've been reading your blog posts since Celestia Sleeps In and I still haven't commented yet!
Wait...
This post never happened.
Looking forward to your potential art.
1933343
Welcome to the club! It's not a Pinkie Pie Party, but we do what we can.
1932590
I wouldn't say that. The imperial system likes halves, thirds, and multiples thereof (quarters, twelfths, etc). A foot is 12 inches because it's easy to divide something into twelfths: halve it, halve each half, and then cut each quarter in thirds. Halves and thirds are easy to produce; fifths (as needed in metric or if it was twenty inches to the foot) and elevenths less so.
1933641
I didn't mean so much that there would only be 11 inches by count. What I was trying to imply is that measurements are relative to each other. The actual distance that one 'foot' covers is arbitrary at best.
1932419
Seconded. Especially since the poor mare probably doesn't get a lot of opportunity to do something as carefree as just lie down under a tree and doze off. She really needs a vacation.
1932624
Or it could equally likely be a Mangalore foot, knowing Pinkie.
